Sunshine Deck, Royal Derby Hospital

Yesterday saw the opening of the newly refurbished Sunshine Deck at Royal Derby Hospital's Children's Unit.  We were asked to create a scheme of vinyls to cover the windows surrounding the deck, using the existing colours on site.

We used a range of brightly coloured transparent vinyls to create a contemporary, fun geometric design that was suitable for the wide age group that would use the unit.  We overlapped the vinyls to create new shades and a sense of depth for the compositions.

Some areas of the scheme needed to be fully printed, so we developed a number of games to allow the children to interact with the artwork, including a board game style illustration, encouraging the children to play creatively.  Oh, and pull a silly face.

An alphabet ran along several other boards, also using the geometric style.

In all, we covered over 35 panels with Firecatcher artwork, creating a vibrant, fun and modern space for playing.

New York Window

I've finally got round to posting the New York window pics! The prints are available in the shop and you can see more photos here.

Christmas Joy!

This week we've spent doing the Christmas window and arranging the Christmas presents (or stock), as well as updating the studio space with new prints and pictures.


This year's window theme is winter birds and we've kept it simple with black and white line drawings and a lovely Christmas red.







Bex's Winter Birds


Christmas Prints



Skyscape Prints and box frame illustrations with acetate overlays.


Work in Progress wall with all our recent scribblings!

Return of the Seagull

Last week saw us back in Derby, this time painting the outside of the Children's Emergency Department. It was a little different for us, using the different paints, painting on a very bobbly wall and the use of a rather high scaffold, but still good fun!
Warren, Shrimpy, Puffball and Crabby help direct people in in their own unique way!

As well as the outside, we also did a little more work inside on a corridor that connects to the rest of the hospital. The brief for this was more seagulls, but to incorporate the other various wards we had to include puffins, ladybirds and sunflowers!


Indiana LadyJones runs away from a boulder of wool!

A & E opens tomorrow...

The Children's Emergency Department is having its grand opening (well, sort of) at 2am tomorrow, and our work is featured on the front page of the Derbyshire Telegraph ... http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/cut-wait-times-new-e/article-1003229-detail/article.html

We're very excited about the prospect of the public seeing our work for the first time and would like to wish all staff and patients a very successful and stress-free move. I wonder who will be the first to find the Dr. Who Seagull in the X ray..?

October Window

Window design at Firecatcher has become a bit of a tradition which started with our Harry Potter window (see archive!) and has continued with us trying to out do the previous! We use the space as more of an art installation than a promotional area and as well as our own designs have had other artist's using the window as an exhibition space.

For this Autumn's window we decided to go gothic to tie in with Halloween and one of our favourite books 'Twilight' by Stephenie Meyer. We've been pretty much hooked (and slightly obsessed!) with the Twilight saga and when planning the window this time around thought it would be a good way to spread the word and create something dark and striking at the same time.


The nature of the window means the photo's are quite dark but the main essence of the design uses a black, red and white theme with eight beautiful roses hung equal distance apart to create a quite graphic look. 'Wickedly Wonderful' is written in black vinyl lettering across the top, with 'Go Gothic this Autumn' below. The idea with the roses was that they would gradually wilt and die giving that dark feel.

Bec Garland Window

Firecatcher Books are proud to announce the launch of their first 'Exhibition Window' by local artist Bec Garland titled A Gallery of Animals.

Bec Garland is an artist and illustrator from Manchester, working as resident artist for Manchester Metropolitan University. Her exhibition 'A Gallery of Animals', consists of intricate black and white line drawings of creatures with splashes of colour suspended between exotic images of trees.
The exhibition opens in Firecatcher's window in The Last Drop Village on Monday 10th March and will be open for six weeks. After that, the work will be turned into a book by the Artist. For more information on Bec Garland click on the image below.